Concerning pro-war propaganda in the NZ Listener

Let's see if it is published. My suspision is that it will not be, or it will be edited to make it meaningless.

Comments
from Prof Stephen Cohen:

Many
thanks for your comments and for what you are doing. Sheriff is
promoting his book and getting a lot of help. As Richard Sakwa wrote
recently, the only Russia-relatead military threats and crises are
ones that US/NATO itself created — and it is very dangerous.

Wishing
all of us well,

sfc

Re
the article “Former Nato commander: Europe is heading for war with
Russia”

Seemorerocks

"Genial chap"and warmonger, General Sir Richard Shirreff

One
gets the impression from Cathrin Shaer’s article of a “genial
chap” writing his first piece of fiction - a potboiler.

Unfortunately
the author was 2nd-in-charge of NATO until recently and so has to be
taken a bit more seriously than an amateur writer.

I
find it frightening to think of such a man (and I’m thinking of
Gen Breedlove as well), in charge of the security of the West for
there is hardly a single fact in anything they say.

The
“genial chap” happens to be a warmonger.

And
yet the consequences of their words and deeds are absolutely dire.

A
picture is painted of an unstable leader, Vladimir Putin, thirsting
after the past greatness of the Soviet Union taking his country into
ruin and invading all his neighbours from Ukraine, Poland and the
Baltics.

The
fact is it is all a piece of fiction - the threatening, the
posturing. and most of all, the purported invasions.

None
of it is true .

The
fact is there have been no invasions.

Russia
"took" Crimea back as a reflexive action without a single
soldier being brought in from outside, or a single shot being fired.

The
"invasion" of Ukraine is likewise a complete myth.

Far
from being a ‘dictator’ Putin has to balance between differing
factions. The main criticism to Putin has been that he has been
sitting on his hands doing nothing, relying on Lavrov's diplomacy,
while the Russian-speaking people of Donbass are being bombed and
killed.

If
Russia had wanted to invade they'd have been at the gates of Kiev
within days.

The
introduction of a few facts would help:

Bush
Sr. and Kohl promised Gorbachev and the Russians aftter the collapse
of the USSR that NATO would not move "a centimetre" to the
east. This was betrayed during the 90's when Russia was weak until
now

Russia
is truly encircled and we have NATO troops based 100 miles from St.
Petersburg and there is talk of the introduction of nuclear weapons

The
United States has long threatened the introduction of "missile
defense shield" which they claimed was directed at Iran (sic)
but which has now been opened to great fanfare in Romania.

This
allows the Americans to change their policy from MAD
(mutually-assured destruction) to a nuclear strike first policy.

It
was the Americans under George W Bush, not the Russians, who
abrogated the Sovist-era ABM (anti ballistic missile) Treaty that
allowed both countries to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Western
actions are not ones of deterrence, (especially seen in relation to
other actions taken against the Russians, in areas from economic
sanctions to sport boycotts) , but of utmost (and repeated)
provocation.

Claims
of "aggression" by the Russians-can be given the lie to by
two recent headlines:

The
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned NATO a couple
of weeks back against "warmongering" (his
word), after it conducted military exercises in Eastern
Europe and said that manoeuvres were counterproductive to regional
security and could inflame tensions with Russia. He urged NATO to
replace the exercises with more dialogue and co-operation with
Russia.http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36566422

The
chairman of the NATO Military Committee,General Petr Pavel,
stated some days ago that he sees no imminent Russian threat to
Baltics "It is not the aim of NATO to create a military
barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such
aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment
suggests such a thing." http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-pavel-idUSKCN0Z616T

It
would not be unreasonable to conclude that the greatest threat to the
world's security comes, not from Russia but from the neo-cons that
rule the roost in Washington.